Essential Reading

I was standing in line of the local reading emporium, waiting to purchase an overpriced item, when something on the front cover of one of those womens magazines caught my eye. It said "Inside: how to diet like a hot girl." Now this to me exemplified what is wrong with society today, specifically why young girls today have such a shit culture to grow into. To me, the article itself made two key negative statements which I will address in turn. Firstly, that dieting in necessary. Secondly, it implied that the reader was not an attractive girl (I was most offended, I thought I was an attractive girl). But firsts first.

Whilst the title may not have come right out and say it, the idea of dieting has become so prevalent in the culture of not only females but males as well, and in younger and younger generations. What we all should be seeing and should be screaming with rage is that skinny women and tanked guys are becoming the be all and end all of beauty in the media. Let me start off by saying, as I have said hundreds of times, that self imposed anorexic models are in no way attractive. But what we see is a push towards thin body structure being the highest point in the social hierarchy. This is being achieved in several ways.

1. All of the figures in the media are seen to be very skinny (or at least the ones that have been defined as hot)
2. The anorexic agenda is reinforced through music and video media in which direct lyrics or footage states that skinny is hot and fat is not. Furthermore, modelling agents that force models to be underweight to get work add to this negative body image persona.
3. The final social trend contributing to this relates to the opposition of these figures and thought processes in the media. Where is it?? There are no great sweeping movements within our society to promote healthy eating and body image, and as the old saying goes, if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

This push towards thin beauty is disgusting. Not only is it a health risk, but it is completely false. People have so much beauty within themselves, but they cannot see past the barrier that has been put up against their self confidence. And this leads me to my second point

The magazine title that started this rant directly implied that, not only was dieting hot, but that the person reading it was not hot and should diet to change that. The problem with this is that it has the opportunity to instantly crush the confidence of any teenager that walks past and reads it. And this is a large part of the problem: the media and current social trends capitalize upon peoples (especially teenagers) wavering or minimal self confidence, and offer them a solution that is so difficult to achieve that they end up harming themselves in the process.

I in no way intend any harm to truly anorexic people with these views. It is a serious mental disorder that plagues many individuals. But what we see is a rise in the number of affected people, which seems to be resultant from this trend in common culture I have discussed.

Do we sit by and watch as our society captures our attentions and brain washes us? We do not. Whilst this blog will not enact major changes any time soon, I implore you, the readers, to go out, compliment a friend, any friend, tell them why they are special. Put thought in to it, explain to them why they rock. Write it down, send it to them, email or snail mail is fine. Lets start our own trend. Fuck the media. If we want change we need to take the first step.